The sins of the Fathers (Lawrence Block, 1967)

This is the first one in the still ongoing (approaching 20 books) series of Matt Scudder mysteries, and it’s a bit boring, to be honest. I think it tries too hard to be unusual and original. It builds on this weird premise that it isn’t really a crime novel since there is no crime to start with!? The thing is that our hero has just been hired to uncover the secret past life of a murdered girl, so her stepfather can cope with her death. And our hero is not really a detective, but as he puts it himself: “Private detectives are licensed. They tap telephones and follow people. They fill out forms, they keep records, all of that. I don’t do those things. Sometimes I do favors for people. They give me gifts.”

So he’s not stereotypical by-the-book kind of tough guy (although he kicks one mugger’s ass big time, takes his money and – check this! – breaks four of his fingers one at a time. What a bad ass!). Not much of a ladies' man either, once he cannot even get it up (probably because he’s too involved in the “case”). He’s divorced and has left the police department because he had incidentally killed a little girl, and this still haunts him, so he’s drinking too much and lighting candles in churches and shit like that.

As far as mystery is concerned, things are, of course, not as simple as they appear (they never are in crime books). We get a pretty strong hint somewhere in the middle (as the title wasn’t a big enough spoiler), and the final revelation is anything but shocking.

All in all, I kind of liked it, but there’s simply not enough happening, and it spends far too much time on this guy and not enough on the story. I don’t know, maybe because it’s the first one with Block’s new hero, and he needs a more detailed introduction. Writing is superb, and it really has a bleak, sometimes depressive tone and feel. I’ll definitely check another of Scudder's cases.

3/5

Facts

Hero: 
Matt Scudder, an ex-cop who is now doing favours for people and gets gifts in return.

Location: 
New York, early 70s

Dames: 
Wendy (victim), Marcia (her ex roommate), Trina (Matt’s friend/fuck buddy, I’m not really sure), Elaine (prostitute, also kind of Matt’s friend), Anita (Matt’s ex-wife, but we don’t really get to know her)

Body count: 

3

Cool lines:
Sex – evil, unscrupulous sex – gives certain woman an extraordinary hold upon susceptible men. Man is weakling, Mr Scudder, and he is so often powerless to cope with the awful of an evil woman’s sexuality.

He sat few minutes in silence. I took out my flask and had another drink. Drinking was against his religion. Well, murder was against mine.